An Interview with Joey Corpus

August 27, 2007, 10:51 AM · MANHATTAN—In a 2001 profile, The Strad magazine labeled Manhattan-based violin pedagogue Joey Corpus "The Underground Guru." One the area's most sought-after private teachers, Joey Corpus is not officially affiliated with any particular institution, although he teaches many conservatory and pre-college students privately from his Upper West Side apartment, which is situated on Broadway, between Juilliard and the Manhattan School. His roster of well-known former students includes Lara St. John, who studied with Joey for 15 years, during her time at Curtis and beyond. In addition to college-age and pre-college students, Joey's busy studio includes many post-conservatory professionals who work with him intensively while they prepare for auditions; hence his famous nickname, "The Secret Weapon."

Me and Joey at his Upper West Side Apartment on a summer afternoon.

Joey is a member of Violinst.com, and a thoughtful contributor to its discussion pages. Alert readers may recall from previous discussion threads that Joey is a paraplegic, confined to a wheelchair since a tragic automobile accident that took his mother's life when he was eleven and still living in his homeland, the Philippines. It was not until a few years after the accident that Joey, who grew up in a musical family but had been told he was hopeless at piano at age eight, became seriously interested in violin. At fourteen he began to study in earnest, often without the aid of a teacher, and at 15 he was offered a full scholarship to come to New York and study at Juilliard with Dorothy DeLay. But due to medical issues, Joey stayed at home in the Philippines until 1982 when he came to Philadelphia to study with the late Jascha Brodsky. As soon as Joey arrived in Philadelphia, his fellow students began coming to him outside of class for help solving problems in their own playing. All the long years of self-study had sharpened Joey's innate ability to analyze the mechanics of violin-playing. From the earliest moments of his professional career, Joey was recognized by his peers as a master pedagogue. The rest, as they say, is history.

Even though I've been studying with Joey for only about a year, already I feel that my technical facilities and musical understanding of the repertoire have progressed immensely. I've been fortunate enough to have had excellent teachers throughout my violin life, but somehow Joey's analytical approach has helped me achieve a few breakthroughs in areas where I had been struggling for years. On top of it all, Joey is one of the sweetest and most intelligent people I've ever met. Some kids my age have teachers that scream at them until they get something right, but Joey gets his point across without breaking anything, and he does it with a sense of humor, too. Although the drive from my house in Philadelphia to his apartment can top three hours with traffic, the trek is worth it for lessons from him!

Caeli: What range of levels and ages do you teach?

Joey: My youngest student at the moment is 12 years old, and I have a few in pre-college. I don't teach beginner and intermediate levels simply because I don't have the training or the experience. There are many others who would do a much better job of it. Most of my students are in college, professional working musicians looking to improve their playing and violinists preparing for concerts or auditions.

Caeli: Recently, Almita Vamos, whom I interviewed for this website and for From The Top, said that when she meets a prospective student, she looks for a character that she thinks will blend with her own personality, someone she can work with. How do you decide whether to take a student into your studio?

Joey: That was an excellent interview!

Caeli: Thanks!

Joey: I heartily agree with Mrs. Vamos. There are other things I look for, too. I evaluate the person's musicality, temperament, quality of tone, bow arm, left hand technique, and general playing style. I make a mental note of the things that require immediate attention. But there is one other thing that I try to determine that is very important in the scheme of things: the level of self motivation. I ask myself, does the student have the determination, discipline and patience to do the work that is required in order to achieve excellence?

Caeli: In this era of parents starting their kids on violin at age two, it is remarkable to learn that you were able to become so accomplished so quickly, despite your rather late start on violin. I know that you became serious about violin starting at around age 14, but when did you first start training?

Joey: I was very nearly 14 when I started. Before that I had pretty much decided to become a [visual] artist. I had apprenticed with my uncle, the renowned artist Federico Aguilar Alcuaz, for about a year, sold a few pieces and assumed that that was going to be my career even though I wasn't very good at it.

Then I found a violin in the house one day and I thought it would be great to learn how to play it. It took about a year before my father had it repaired so it could be played. The reason for this delay was that as a kid I'd taken piano lessons. After a year my teacher told my father to save his money. She said I had no musical talent whatsoever! So when I expressed an interest in playing the violin my father assumed it was just a short-lived whim. I was very excited to finally get to play the violin.

My uncle (my father's brother), who lived next door, was an amateur violinist. He taught me how to hold the violin and bow, but that was it. Even after a year of piano I didn't really know how to read notes. I knew where middle C was, found it on the violin, and taught myself how to read notes, and to vibrate. About 6 months later I played [Elgar's] Salut D'Amour as my audition piece and started formal violin lessons.

Caeli: That pretty much flies against all conventional wisdom on the subject, and yet you were so successful. How did you manage? I can just imagine the response you'd get on this board if you posted, "I've never had formal lessons, but I'm teaching myself to play Salut D'Amour for an audition." Everyone would immediately scream at you to get a teacher!

Joey: Once I was accepted by my first violin teacher I stayed with him for three years. I had lessons with a few others after that, but for the six years before coming to the U.S. I was largely self taught. It wasn't my choice, to be self-taught. For reasons still not completely known to me I was rejected by a couple of teachers. But I wasn't going to let that deter me, so I worked things out on my own, with lots of help from the Flesch and Galamian books.

Caeli: If you had been living in a country with better access to teachers, do you think you would have developed differently as a musician?

Joey: I wouldn't recommend teaching oneself. It can be very frustrating and may not be worth it in the end. I certainly would have developed differently with proper guidance.

Caeli: Do you think being self-taught for so long made you more aware of the process of learning, and therefore a more insightful teacher?

Joey: Yes, definitely. Learning how and why things work was invaluable to me.

Caeli: I know you studied with Jascha Brodsky in my hometown, Philadelphia. What other teachers and mentors did you have?

Joey: My first teacher was Luis Valencia. He gave me an excellent foundation. Lots of Sevcik! There was a Hungarian violinist who taught at the Hamburg State Conservatory for many years. Her name was Nelly Soregi. She came to Manila every summer for 3 years in the mid-70's. She would play and teach for 3 weeks at a time. I had lessons with her 5 days a week. She was a first-rate musician, and I learned much from her, mostly from listening to her lovely playing up close. She was definitely a big influence.

Caeli: You have a lot of brothers (any sisters?) who are also musicians. Can you tell us about your musical family?

Joey: I have four brothers and a sister. Two brothers are involved in music. Hector, who lives in Oviedo, Spain, is a violinist and violist. Rards was a voice major in college, led a heavy metal band for quite a few years and is now a sound engineer. Rolando is a web developer in Philadelphia, Bert is in computer networking, and my sister Marie is a housewife. I have three first cousins, all brothers, who are professional musicians; Jed [Jaime], Ramon and Coke Bolipata.

Caeli: Can you give us a history of your performance career? What made you decide to start teaching, and why did you decide to shift the emphasis of your professional work away from performing and towards teaching?

Joey: There were quite a few opportunities to perform in Manila, Philippines,where I was born and raised. I played solo and chamber music concerts, did a few competitions, was the concertmaster of the country's youth orchestra, played in the master classes of visiting artists – similar to what most young musicians experience early on. At that time I was also interested in a few things other than playing the violin. I had my own chamber orchestra which I conducted for a couple of years. I wrote a lot of music, and toyed with the idea of becoming a composer. When I was in my late teens I decided that it was time to devote all my energies to playing the violin.

The shift to teaching happened somewhat gradually. While in college in Philadelphia, a lot of my friends and classmates kept asking to play for me informally. Before long they were coming to play for me every week. By the time I was done with school there was no doubt in my mind that I wanted to teach more than anything else. I continued to play in public from time to time, but the course of my life was clearly set before me.

Caeli: Tell us about your experience with writing musical arrangements and calligraphy – I've seen the beautiful hand-written arrangements of music in your apartment!

Joey: I started composing and arranging almost as soon as I learned to read notes. I used to arrange standard jazz tunes for string trio or quartet to play with friends. Copying music developed from all that composing/arranging. When I had a chamber orchestra we would occasionally have a score that didn't have parts, so I wrote them out. After college I did a little bit of music copying. It was difficult and time consuming!

An example of Joey's beautiful music calligraphy.

Caeli: I've noticed the overflow of books about jazz and magic on your bookshelves. Would you mind talking about these interests? I can imagine that a violinist and a magician would need similar types of talents and skills!

Joey: My father was an amateur jazz pianist and audiophile, so we all grew up listening to a lot of jazz (apart from classical music) on records. The art of jazz improvisation has always fascinated me and so I mess around with it a little bit (on the piano, not the violin). As for magic, I've been doing sleight-of-hand longer than I've been playing the violin! It's just something I've kept up all these years, solely to amuse my family and friends. It does require fine motor skills and coordination, similar to playing a musical instrument but a little bit easier!

Caeli: There's been a couple discussions on Violinist.com concerning violinists with disabilities. What is your adult life like being in a wheelchair? How does it affect your playing and teaching (if at all?) From my perspective, I completely forget that you're in a wheelchair in our lessons. In fact, if I think about it, you seem to get around the room over to the music stand and back – more quickly than any teacher I've ever had.

Joey: Being a paraplegic confined to a wheelchair is difficult, on many levels, but I'm very thankful how life has worked out. It doesn't really affect my violin playing. It does interfere with my teaching when I have to stay in bed for a few weeks and am unable to work. This happened recently. I had a couple of students who were preparing for college auditions and I couldn't work with them for the crucial 3 weeks before the audition. It was quite frustrating.

Caeli: What advice (both general and specific) would you give to young violinists with disabilities?

Joey: Don't let the disability get in the way of learning or enjoying your instrument, first of all! Sometimes you have to be creative, think "out of the box" and find your own way of doing things. Books on violin playing don't often deal with our particular difficulties, and teachers who don't have our disabilities won't have a clear understanding about a certain problem we're having. Try to figure out how to make it work for you.

Caeli: What advice do you have for violinists who have obstacles in their paths-such as a late start, a disability, or an interruption in their training?

Joey: If you know that your calling is to be a musician, and it is the best thing you do, by all means pursue it with gusto. The road is a little bit more difficult with obstacles, but you deal with them as they come and continue to strive to play as well as you can.

Replies

August 27, 2007 at 08:13 PM · I'm glad you did this interview. The story of starting at 14, teaching yourself, and a year later being offered a full scholarship to the best school, and the best teacher, on the other side of the world, has been unfathomable to me since I first heard it. What should be gleaned from the story? The cynic in me says somebody just knew somebody. To the idealist in me it says a lot less may be inconceivable than we think, and asks what do we pass up because of preconceptions and how do we sell ourselves short. They're opposing thoughts and it's important to get the right message from this. I think the truth has to be somewhere in the middle. What was the mechanism by which Juilliard initially heard of you?

August 27, 2007 at 10:14 PM · Hi, Jim, The way I understand it is that when Joey was 15 he won a competition in Manilla and came to the attention of Edgar Schenkman, a conductor who taught at Juilliard and happened to be touring the Phillipines at that time. It was Mr. Schenkman who offered him the full scholarship. But I'll check with Joey when I see him on Thursday...or maybe he will read this and tell us himself. --Caeli

I don't know if Schenkman taught at Juilliard. I think he conducted the orchestra there for a while and was a friend of Dorothy Delay. Schenkman, along with his violinist wife, Marguerite Quarles Schenkman, were in Manila to give a duo concert and a masterclass. (He played viola.) My cousins, brother and I played together as a piano quartet at that time, and that's when he heard me.

My first experience with music, was when a blind girl taught me several simple songs on piano and the rest was history. Her mother babysat me at around five, and her daughter is someone I shall love forever for the things we share. Not the least of which is a keen awareness of the power of music, and that the rules though important are somewhat flexible; and, that there are several types of intelligence--a fact underwritten throughout my life in reading about IQ/EQ/and others.

I will add you to my list of greats--not because of your disability, but because you deserve it!. You rock.

August 28, 2007 at 07:01 PM · "as a kid I'd taken piano lessons. After a year my teacher told my father to save his money. She said I had no musical talent whatsoever! So when I expressed an interest in playing the violin my father assumed it was just a short-lived whim. I was very excited to finally get to play the violin.

" ...

That is exactly what happened to me - well, the teacher didn't say I didn't have talent, she truthfully said I didn't practice, so my parents didn't let me take violin lessons until I'd been playing for several years in school (group class, then orchestra). It's inspiring to know that Joey was able to accomplish so much in a similar situation!

August 30, 2007 at 02:47 AM · Caeli, ye this was a great interview (you seem to have a knack for interviewing people). Joey, your story is inspriational to all of us, as we all face one obstacle or another as we seek to better know the violin. Personally, I have often suffered from the thought of being a 38 year-old adult beginner who has just discovered something very special in the violin, and has become so desperately in love with the violin, with the music, and am left feeling so desperately in need of developing the skill required of one wishing to bring to bear a fullness of expression. Yet others who do not even know me would often say that I should not expect much, seeing how I have only as of late discovered this treasure that is the violin. Thankfully, my teacher does not and has not thought the same, or suggested the same. Heck, she even tells me that I might one day rise to the level of a professional, given an unwavering, dedicated heart. And, your story, while different in many details, tells the same. Given an unwavering and dedicated heart, much can be accomplished, much indeed (and, of course, this applies to a great deal more than the violin).

August 31, 2007 at 09:46 AM · Thank you all for your very kind comments! I have to say that is a real joy for me to work with Caeli. She is not only a very gifted violinist, but has many other talents as well. It was a privilege to be interviewed by her.

David,

It has been many, many years! It is nice to see your reputation reach beyond these shores. I wish you continued success.